Back to being a school

With children in classes, normalcy returns to Schoharie Elementary

BRYAN FITZGERALD Staff write, Times Union

By BRYAN FITZGERALD Staff writer

Updated 8:26 am, Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The gym in the elementary school is still being used to store cleanup supplies and food for people who have been impacted by the flooding to come and get items they need. Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 was the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

The gym in the elementary school is still being used to store...

The gym in the elementary school is still being used to store cleanup supplies and food for people who have been impacted by the flooding to come and get items they need. Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 was the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

The gym in the elementary school is still being used to store...

The village's offices and the Police Department have been relocated to a classroom in the elementary school building. Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 was the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

The village's offices and the Police Department have been relocated...

Schoharie Police Chief Harold Orelup works at his desk in a classroom in the elementary school that has been turned into the village offices and Police Department. Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 was the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Schoharie Police Chief Harold Orelup works at his desk in a...

Parents play with their children in the kindergarten class during the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district in Schoharie on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Parents play with their children in the kindergarten class during...

Jennifer Myers, left, of Esperance, watches as her son Lucas, 5, builds a tower with blocks in Kindergarten class during the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district in Schoharie on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. Myers said that their side of the street in Esperance was spared any flooding. The school buildings in Schoharie were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Jennifer Myers, left, of Esperance, watches as her son Lucas, 5,...

First grade teacher Heather O'Brien leads her class in a craft project during the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district in Schoharie on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

First grade teacher Heather O'Brien leads her class in a craft...

A first grade student uses a paint stick during a craft project during the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district in Schoharie on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

A first grade student uses a paint stick during a craft project...

Maryellen Gillis, principal of the Schoharie School District Elementary School, sits in the cafeteria during the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district in Schoharie on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Maryellen Gillis, principal of the Schoharie School District...

A view of the Schoharie Central Schools on the first day of school for students on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. The bulldozer in the photograph was submerged under water when the Schoharie Creek flooded the town, according to school officials. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

A view of the Schoharie Central Schools on the first day of school...

John Borst and his son Jacob Borst, 5, of Schoharie, make their way into Jacob's kindergarten class during the first day of school for students in the Schoharie Central School district in Schoharie on Monday, Sept. 12, 2011. The school buildings were not damaged by flooding but the buildings were used to house and feed rescue and recovery workers in the area responding to the recent flooding and so the first day of school was delayed. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

John Borst and his son Jacob Borst, 5, of Schoharie, make their way...

SCHOHARIE -- For the first time this school year, the classrooms Monday at Schoharie Elementary School were filled with students scribbling at their desks, not fatigued firefighters dozing in cots.

School buses replaced ambulances and fire engines in the parking lot. Cafeteria workers cooked for young children instead of full-grown volunteers.

"It's strange," said the school's principal, Maryellen Gillis. "For once, it feels different to have this place full of kids."

The start of classes at Schoharie Elementary was a rare sign of normalcy in this rolling, rural community decimated by record flooding caused by Tropical Storm Irene and the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee.

Perched high on a hill off Main Street, the school suffered nominal flood damage. Classes were supposed to begin last Wednesday, but were delayed while the school, deemed the only large, clean and centrally located space in town, became home to hundreds of emergency workers and volunteers.

The gym is still overflowing with donated goods and the village's offices, including its police department, are being run out of a speech therapy classroom.

Many students have to walk to buses at designated "pick-up points" because roads and bridges to their homes are still inaccessible. Questions about how the district will survive the inevitable fiscal pinch from the storm still linger.

"But we felt like we had to get the students back into school as soon as we could," said district superintendent Brian Sherman. "It gives the kids a chance to talk to each other and see that everyone is OK. And, also, the parents have a place where they can drop their children off for five or six hours and know they're safe and being taken care of."

Classes started in almost every classroom with the students talking to one another and their teachers about what they experienced during the floods.

Over 15 inches of rain swelled the Schoharie Creek and its tributaries to well above flood stage twice in 12 days, and nearly washed out the village.

Roughly 150 of the district's 986 students are displaced from their homes.

"I didn't push any of the kids to talk about what happened," said Heather O'Brien, a first-grade teacher in her 16th year at Schoharie Elementary. "I just told them to gather in a circle on the carpet and talk about their summer. All except for two or three talked about the flooding."

"It was very sad to hear it from the children's perspective," she said. "Most of them talked about how they lost all their toys. Now, obviously, most of their parents lost everything. But the first thing the children think about and remember is their toys. It's who they are."

O'Brien has spent her entire life in Schoharie. She went to kindergarten in the same classroom she teaches in.

"It was very traumatic for some," she said. "Some of them got very emotional. Some of them shut down."

Gillis said three teachers and seven other staff members lost their homes. She spent her morning walking to each classroom and handing every teacher a packet on how to talk to the children about what they saw and experienced during the floods.

Though some homes are still without electricity and working phones, Gillis said 421 out of the school's 433 students arrived for class Monday morning. The district as a whole had 80 percent attendance Monday.

"The mood today has been overwhelmingly positive," said Gillis, who has been at the school each day since it became accessible on Sept. 1, three days after Irene struck. "And, honestly, that's the way it was when we were here with all the firefighters and volunteers. It was never grim. No one ever hopes to go through something like this, but I am a better person because of it and because of all the wonderful people I met."

In the days following the floods, firefighters from 103 different departments around the state worked 12-hour shifts and slept in classrooms. They showered in the boys' and girls' locker rooms and ate off plastic trays on cafeteria tables.

The school housed between 150 to 190 people per day as a staging center for emergency services, the Department of Transportation and contracted support organizations.

Residents whose homes had been ruined trekked up to the school covered in mud, ate hot meals, and gathered donated goods. They used school computers to contact family by email and register online for federal aid.

State health department workers provided free tetanus shots and dozens of inmates on work released labored around the clock to clean and maintain the school.

The building that housed government offices and the police department was devastated by floodwaters, so village employees and the cops moved to classroom #45 on the school's first floor.

On Monday, rows of payroll forms and business certificates were drying out on a table adjacent to where Harold Orelup, the village's chief of police for 29 years, had set up his temporary desk.

His window looks out on the playground. The department's two police cars are outside the school's rear entrance between buses.

"It's a little different," Orelup said. "We don't have all the equipment we need, but everyone in the school and elsewhere is doing the best they can."

The village was able to save almost all of its documents.

Classes got under way in Schoharie as other districts devastated by flooding got ready for a new school year. With the exception of Windham-Ashland-Jewett School in Windham, all Greene County schools were planning to open Tuesday. Middleburgh Central Schools, its district office washed out in the floods, hopes to reopen on Monday.

Sherman, the district superintendent, said funding from property taxes is a concern for his district and others damaged by the floods.

He said tax bills will be sent out in his district this week as scheduled, but residents who cannot pay on time will be given a one-month extension through October.

The county will cover the losses for residents who do not pay their property taxes, Sherman said, but the district, which operates on a $24 million budget, will not receive that money until April.

Many homes may not ever be inhabitable again, driving away both residents and their taxes.

"Others may return and decide their homes are not worth what they're assessed at," Sherman said. "It's going to have a tremendous impact on us down the road. The idea of consolidation is going to be in the forefront once again."

Stores along Main Street are still either shuttered or closed for business during cleanup. Sherman said a drive through the village can be depressing.

"All the homes are gutted," he said. "The windows are like deep, dark eyes void of life. They look like carved-out pumpkins."

Donna Rozon, the county's deputy clerk, said she was enjoying her new desk in classroom #45.

"It's nice to hear their voices as they walk through the hall," Rozon said. "It soothes me."

Sherman said there will be no homework for the first two weeks.

"It's something they shouldn't have to worry about right now."

Reach Fitzgerald at 454-5414 or bfitzgerald@timesunion.com. On Twitter: @BFitzgeraldTU.